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After losing his leg at AR-558, Nog returns home to Deep Space 9 to a hero's welcome. He has undergone extensive medical treatment counseling at Starbase 235. Although his leg has been regenerated, Nog has been placed on indefinite medical leave by Starfleet. CaptainSisko informs him they're due to have a welcome home party for him later in the wardroom, but Nog tells everyone he's tired and would rather rest.

However, Nog finds the counseling with Ezri pointless. He uses a cane, and complains of pain, even though a tricorder scan does not show any nerves firing, leading doctors to conclude it's psychological. Nog, in his state, finds this ridiculous; the pain is real, he's not making it up.

The only solace for Nog is in the Vic Fontaine recording that DoctorBashir played during his time in triage on AR-558, "I'll Be Seeing You". He now plays it constantly, enough to drive Jake Sisko crazy. Sick of listening to the same song constantly, he insists that Nog use a holosuite. On the way to the holosuite, he has a sudden flashback on the death of Larkin and getting shot in his leg. Afterward, Nog goes into one of Quark's holosuites having Vic sing fifteen versions he knows of "I'll Be Seeing You". In fact, he feels safe enough that he talks Vic into letting Nog live with him, as the terms of his medical leave state he can choose to recuperate wherever he wishes.

Later, the crew gathers together to discuss the situation with Nog living in a holosuite. Ezri points out that this could be a good thing since Nog's counseling wasn't progressing. They decide that someone needs to talk to Vic about Nog's emotional and physical condition and Ezri volunteers. When Ezri goes to talk to Vic, Vic explains he has a trick or two up his sleeve to let him heal.

To give him something to do, Vic complains about his inability to do his accounting, and how his books are a mess. Nog offers to have the computer put some money in his books. Vic declines and says that he needs to go do a performance. As he's about to leave, he asks Nog if he is going to come along. Nog says he will, and in return, Vic gives him a Lion's Head cane that has a lighter built in. Vic says the cane is fragile and asks Nog not to put his full weight on it. Unfortunately, trouble occurs when Jake takes his friend Kesha on a date into the holosuite for Vic's performance. Nog is moody, and when the subject of his heroism comes up, Nog becomes irritated. When Jake asks Nog what's wrong, the Ferengi becomes angry and starts a fight by throwing the table onto Jake. Vic has to kick Nog back to their room.

When Vic returns to the suite, he finds Nog watching a movie. He complains about his books again and Nog helps him out. After a while, Ezri comes up to see how Nog is doing. When she tries to convince Vic to persuade Nog to leave the holosuite, Vic refuses and recites Starfleet regulations and Nog turns up and tells Ezri that if she tries to force him to leave he'll resign his Starfleet commission before informing Vic that he has enough money to build a new casino. Ezri is forced to give up and leaves Nog to it, as he soon finds solace in using his Ferengi business instincts to help make Vic's bar a success. Through a series of events, we see Nog and Vic drawing up plans, watching movies, wooing women at the bar, and reading the newspaper.

Ezri shows up at the bar and sees Nog walking around holding, but not using, his cane. Leeta and Rom show up to the bar and Nog seats them at a table. Nog learns that Rom has been promoted to Maintenance Engineer First Class and offers to throw a party, only to be informed that there was a party thrown by ChiefO'Brien the previous evening, making Nog realize what he's missing on the outside. When Ezri and Vic talk about Nog's progress, she thinks Nog should return to the real world, and convinces Vic the same thing by tricking him into realizing he is just using Nog if he lets him stay. Vic tries to try and talk Nog out, but when he won't go Vic shuts down his program to force Nog to face the real world again.

Nog tries to force the computer to run the program, but to no avail. Chief O'Brien arrives to investigate after noticing that the holosuite systems were being tampered with and tells him that if Vic doesn't want to appear, he won't. Miles then leaves, telling Nog everyone misses him in Ops and soon after, Vic causes himself to reappear, and Nog realized what he was probably holding back from all the counseling sessions. He tells Vic when the war began, despite how many people he saw get wounded or killed, Nog thought he was going to be okay. Then he got injured at AR-558, and now the Ferengi is suffering from an overwhelming fear of his mortality caused by losing his leg. It was this, apparently, that he couldn't tell the counselors. Vic talks him out of it gingerly with a long speech, and Nog slowly but surely returns to reality. He walks out of the holosuite and leaves his cane. When Nog comes downstairs, he runs into Leeta, Rom, and Quark and promises them he's going to be all right, in time.

Soon after Nog, back in his Starfleet uniform, visits Vic to tell him he's returned to limited duty. He thanks Vic for his help with good news: Quark will keep Vic's program running 26/7, effectively giving Vic a life of his own. Vic celebrates by singing and performing with a renewed vigor.

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"At first, it struck me as a little... peculiar. But after I thought it over, I began to think that maybe this is a good sign after all."
"How can hiding in one of Julian's adolescent programs be a good sign?"
"Hey..."
"It could be worse. He could be hiding in the Alamo program."
"Or that ridiculous secret agent program."
(amused) "Hey..."
"Or that stupid Viking program."
(outraged)"Hey!"

- Ezri, Quark, Jake, Leeta, and Rom teasing Bashir

"He's a one legged crazy man!"

- Rom, on the new Nog

"And who's going to pay for all this holosuite time? (everyone looks at Quark) I guess I am."
"And it's very generous of you."

- Quark and Sisko

"She called you a hero, and for that you slugged your best friend? Remind me never to give you a compliment."

- Vic after the incident in the lounge

"(About Shane movie) I like The Searchers better!"
"Yeah, who doesn't?"

- Nog and Vic

"Is there anything I can do?"
"You know anything about bookkeeping?"
"I'm a Ferengi, it's in our blood."
"Be my guest." (hands Nog the account books)
"Where's your computer?"
"Right here." (holds up a pencil)
(Nog gives him a look)
"It's 1962, what do you want from me?"

- Nog and Vic Fontaine

"Vic's matrix is a little different than your standard photokinetic hologram. He can turn himself off and if he doesn't want to appear he doesn't appear."
"You mean he has free will?"
"I'm an engineer, not a philosopher!"

- Miles O'Brien and Nog

"When the war began... I wasn't happy or anything, but I was eager. I wanted to test myself. I wanted to prove I had what it took to be a soldier and I saw a lot of combat. I saw a lot of people get hurt. I saw a lot of people die. But I didn't think anything was going to happen to me. And then, suddenly Dr. Bashir is telling me he has to cut my leg off. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. If I could get shot, if I could lose my leg, anything can happen to me, Vic. I could die tomorrow. I don't know if I'm ready to face that. If I stay here, at least I know what the future is going to be like."
"You stay here, you're going to die. Not all at once, but little by little. Eventually, you'll become as hollow as I am."

- Nog and Vic Fontaine

"Look kid, I don't know what's going to happen to you out there. All I can tell you is that you've got to play the cards life deals you. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but at least you're in the game."

This episode is unique in Star Trek insofar as it focuses almost entirely on two non-regular characters, although this was not the original conception of the episode. It began as an A, B, C story, with three concurrent plotlines (like the second season episode "Shadowplay") all taking place in Vic's, and the Nog story was simply one of them. In fact the original pitch for the episode didn't even feature the Nog story at all, because it was pitched long before Nog lost his leg. In 1995John J. Ordover and David Mack came up with a unique idea, which they pitched to Ronald D. Moore. According to Ordover, "Our notion was that the most attractive pitch would be something that was as cheap for them to produce as possible. Well, that would be an entire episode that had no visual effects, very little makeup, and only one set to light." The original idea involved a Bajoran holiday and everything on the Promenade closed except Quark's, which is where the episode would be set. Ordover and Mack dubbed their idea "Everybody Goes to Quark's". The writing team tried to build an episode from the idea, but they were unable to at the time, and the concept was shelved. It was only with the introduction of the character of Vic Fontaine in Season 6 that Ira Steven Behr suggested revisiting the idea, and setting it at Vic's instead of Quark's. The writers decided to have two comic plots and one serious plot, and it was decided early on that the serious plot would involve Nog's recuperation after losing his leg in "The Siege of AR-558". However, when it came time to actually compose the teleplay, Moore found that the Nog plot, because it was so heavy, was dominating the other two just-for-kicks plots. Soon, Ira Behr realized that the show had become about Nog and Vic, and he told Moore to jettison the other two stories and concentrate on the serious plot. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

Ron Moore commented: "The show that was originally pitched to us was called 'Everyone Comes to Quark's'. It was one of those intriguing ideas that everybody liked, but nobody knew how to make it work. It was high concept show, where you just do an entire episode set completely in Quark's, and you tell all the stories only in Quark's. You do a whole day, from Quark opening the bar in the morning to Quark closing it down at night. We could never really make it work, but none of us really wanted to give up on it, especially me. We said, 'Let's do that goddamn show this year'. I think I said, or it might have been Ira, one of us said: 'If we set the show in Vic's and you did the whole episode in the holosuite at at Vic's, maybe it would come off a little easier'. We all sparked to that idea, and we decided to wave in a bunch of different stories. Ira said, 'we need a real strong one. We don't have a heavy one, and one that will give a spine to the episode'. This was around the time that they were working on "The Siege of AR-558", and they were having this big to-do about Nog's leg, these creepy internal discussions that you have, 'Is it one leg or both legs? No, if it's both legs it's too much'. Once that had gone into motion we said, that can be the spine of ["It's Only a Paper Moon"]. Nog dealing with the loss of his leg will be the heavy storyline that will give meaning to everything else within this fun show that we are going to do. Then as we started structuring that episode, the Nog story became so strong, and we realized that it was hard to cut away from that, while Nog is going through this major ordeal in his life. It felt like all the characters should be concerned about him. This is really a Nog show, and we should just lost all the rest of this concept and just do it. Just tell the story of Nog listening to that song in 'AR-558' and that drawing him back to the holosuite, and let him lose himself in there for an episode. By that point, we were so far down the line, that weren't really saying, you know, it's two guest stars. It wasn't really until we go into the nitty-gritty of writing the episode that everybody said, 'I can't believe we are doing a show about Vic and Nog'. It was just not something we set out to do". (Cinefantastique, Vol. 32, No. 4/5, pp 61-62)

Obviously, the show is also a personal favorite of Aron Eisenberg's; "I was honored. It was my biggest episode in all seven seasons. I was working every day, and I was in almost every scene. I had a ball. They trusted that James Darren and I could carry an episode, and I gave it everything I had. I played Nog differently than I had before, because he was in a different place in his mind. He wasn't the gung-ho soldier anymore. Now his goals were blurred, and he was on this downward spiral because of fear." His favorite scene is when Nog breaks into tears; "It wasn't written that way. The script just said that Nog gets emotional. When we were ready to shoot, I realized that I had to cry. It was the defining moment of what the episode was all about. You finally see what's inside that's gotten Nog to this point. Up until then, you didn't know why he was behaving that way. I grew that day as an actor." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

After this episode aired, Eisenberg was contacted by a number of combat veterans who told him that his performance was extremely true to life, and who complimented him on his work. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

Although speculative, the events of Star Trek: Insurrection (which was released between "Covenant" and "It's Only a Paper Moon") could have occurred during this episode. This is due to the fact that Worf is only in the opening scenes of the episode, an episode which spans a fair period of time, and he does not appear at all in either of the next two episodes, "Prodigal Daughter" and "The Emperor's New Cloak" (only the mirror Worf appears in the latter episode). The apparently large period of absence in his appearances would allow him enough time to assist in the security upgrade of the Manzar colony and join the USS Enterprise-E crew during its mission to the Briar Patch before returning to the station by the time of "Field of Fire".

This episode contains a scene from just before the final battle on AR-558 which wasn't actually seen in the episode "The Siege of AR-558"; after Bashir puts on "I'll Be Seeing You", he goes to check on Nog, who inquires as to the name of the song.